DECEMBER 
355 
their sweety but weak song.* Some weeks ago I 
found a mammal^ which I cannot find described in Dr. God- 
man's American Quadrupeds, and which may possibly be 
unknown. I took it for a species of Arvicola, resembling 
the common short-tailed field-mouse, but with a shorter tail, 
and the head much rounder and more bluff; the ears were 
large ; it was of a dark iron-grey colour. It had probably 
been caught by a cat, for it was lying dead on the earth, 
near the house. It may possibly be Arvicola Hudsonius, 
or perhaps a Geomys. 
C. — I see, at a great distance, at the margin of the 
forest, a sudden bright gleam of light recurring at regular 
intervals of two or three seconds. Do you see it ? or do you 
know what it is ? 
F . — It is a woodman chopping ; he is too far off to be 
distinguished among the bushes and underbrush ; but every 
time he lifts his axe above his head, the polished steel re- 
flects the sun's light, and makes those fitful flashes. It has 
a singular appearance, unconnected, as it seems, with any 
apparent cause. 
C. — The insect world I have found to be not altogether 
so shut up from observation as I had imagined. On Christ- 
mas-day, I took a walk into the woods ; and examining the 
stump of an old decayed hemlock, I found in it two minute 
ChrysomelidxEy a small black Cantharis, and two specimens 
* At the time of making the observations on which the above remarks 
are founded, I had no doubt at all that these were Yellow-birds, from their 
mode of flight, song, colour, and manners. But I have since been induced 
to believe that they might perhaps have been the Pine Finch (Fringilla 
Pinus)^ a winter bird ; and which, I find by reference to Wilson, has a 
very remarkable resemblance to the yellow-bird in all these respects, parti- 
cularly in note and plumage. The same remark will apply to the observa- 
tion made in XXV. December 1st. page 345. P. H. G. 
